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Summary

Assassin's Creed finally has a handheld offering worthy of its console cousins. Running parallel to the behemoth that is the console version of Assassin's Creed III, Liberation takes players south to Louisiana and, more specifically, New Orleans.

While past handheld entries into the Assassin's Creed franchise such as Assassin's Creed II: Discovery on the DS have offered a different sort of experience to their console counterparts, Ubisoft Sofia hasn't pulled any punches with Liberation. The aim is nothing short of a full Assassin's Creed experience on a machine you can fit in your pocket. The added oomph of the PSVita certainly helps in this, and there's a level of graphical detail not seen in Assassin's Creed's portable offerings before thanks to Ubi Sofia having used the same engine as that of the console game.

As you'd expect of a full-blooded Assassin's Creed game, there's a huge open world to explore, with locations taking in not just the urban settlement of New Orleans, but the surrounding Bayou and even part of Mexico, too.

The action centres around the growing conflict in the area between the French and the Spanish (and, of course, the Assassins and the Templars), which makes for an epic of a game that plays out over no less than 12 years.

In a first for the series, our hero(ine) is a woman. Aveline is born of two worlds  her father was a French merchant while her mother was a slave liberated by her dad. This means that while she's an insider to New Orleans, she has something of the outsider about her, too. Because the events run alongside those of the console game, Aveline will meet up with and interact with Conner, though the less we spoil about that the better...

The Vita's back and front touch screens have been put to good use in things like chain kills (which enable you to select targets for Aveline then watch them play out in real time) coach driving and pickpocketing. There's also online multiplayer for those who fancy really testing their skills.